British rock band, Led Zeppelin known for their influential legacy within the music industry and rock culture, have made an iconic comeback. This time, not on stage touring the world, but touring cinema screens instead. ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ is a music documentary focusing on the rise of Led Zeppelin. The film originally premiered at the renowned Venice Film Festival back in 2021, now four years later, it will start screening worldwide from the 7th of February.
The picture, rich in visuals, takes the band’s fans through a journey of growth, hard-hitting, sudden fame and an unstoppable talent owned by the four rock legends. To many viewers’ excitement the moving image is to have rare and unseen footage woven throughout, providing an extra level of personal knowledge between fans and the band. Interviews, performances and archival footage of the band members are included within this film resulting in a space to learn about them as a band not just watch and observe.
When it comes to the structure of the film, it follows a narrative composition making it unique to other rock documentaries. The film doesn’t have an overbearing voice, instead it’s an optical story giving the band members the space to personally unfold their voyage to success. The band members Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones share these stories on screen with beautiful archive footage of John Bonham who died in 1980.
Directed by Bernard MacMahon – known for American Epic (2017) – his work is recognised for the immense attention to detail in his shots as well as using film as a visual way to storytell. This gives this new film a strong way to debut within music cinema.
The group’s notable perseverance in their early years facing negative critic reviews plays a large part of their celebrated route to fame. This provides film with strong tones of determination and how to resolve problems, an inspiring watch for the younger viewers and new generation of artists.
This is the first and only time that the leading rock-and-roll band have participated within a documentary in the past 50 years making the film highly anticipated. It is the perfect watch to learn about the band on a personal level and how their music became the most famous rock music in the world.
